


Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt

by Jointhebattle



Series: Inbetween Days [4]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Denial of Feelings, F/M, Feelings, Friends With Benefits, Nudity, Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:13:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24588898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jointhebattle/pseuds/Jointhebattle
Summary: Part 4 of series "Inbetween Days"Seteth is every emotion. Also he is soft for Byleth.
Relationships: My Unit | Byleth/Seteth
Series: Inbetween Days [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1623028
Comments: 37
Kudos: 96





	Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt

**Author's Note:**

> I say this every time, but I mean it every time: I'm so sorry this update took so long. 2020 has just been... ugh I guess you guys already know. I hope you're all safe and well.
> 
> Just as a warning: there is sex in this chapter, but it's not really explicit. I hope my tag is fine. The series is rated as E already, and any installments that don't have explicit smut in will be marked as M rated from now on because I don't want to attract any underage readers. 
> 
> This chapter really was extremely difficult to write, since my kids are home full time I guess writing is just harder than normal. I hope the chapter doesn't suffer because of that.

“It is our duty to worship Saint Cichol! We will not allow heretics to come near!”

Seteth grit his teeth and lobbed his short axe surely at its target. The priest fell, along with her insufferable beliefs. He was angry.

It had been many years since he had been so angry.

The dissent from the Western Church would not be quite so infuriating if it weren’t so utterly absurd. To hear his own name invoked in prayer as they attacked him; as they attempted to defile his late wife’s grave. He retrieved his weapon from the corpse and swung his wyvern around, searching for Flayn in the chaos. 

She was safe. Healing a minor wound for Prince Dimitri from a distance. 

He scanned the battlefield for Byleth and found her far from the main fray, deep in the enemy ranks. Too far. 

“Linhardt!” he called out to the boy who bore the crest of his own blood. A strange, distractible child, but no less focused than his peers in the heat of battle. 

Linhardt stumbled to his side, his eyes wide and panicked. It was evident that he had not seen many battles. 

“Where are you hurt?” he asked in a rush. “Are you bleeding? Please say no.”

Seteth reached an open hand down towards him. “I need to get to Byleth. She is fighting alone by the monument. I fear she will be overwhelmed.”

The child snatched his hand for a moment, and when he released him, Seteth was by Byleth’s side. Time seemed to slow briefly as he watched her defend Aoife’s grave from the pillagers. He realised almost instantly that he had misjudged. She had no need of his assistance.

She cut down their enemies calmly and with the kind of confident efficiency that comes to someone only after spending their lifetime on the battlefield. 

An arrow came careening towards her seemingly out of nowhere, and without thinking Seteth leapt from his mount down onto the beach and hurtled himself between them, just in time for Blyleth to kick out his knees and slice the arrow in half with her sword before it reached either of them.

"You're getting in my way," she snapped, blithely cracking an attacker over the head with the butt of her sword. "Get back up on that stinking animal and use your damn head or fuck off!" 

He scrambled to his feet. "My apolo–"

"It's not the time for niceties–" she pulled a short knife from the sheath at her hip and launched it at him. Seteth flinched, but the knife flew past his head and into the throat of a man behind him with a low thud. "–you can apologise later."

He heaved himself back onto his wyvern, suitably chastised by her words, and focused on the attackers surrounding them. 

Byleth didn't need him to protect her, that much was clear, but he would prove to her that he could be a valuable ally.

He fell back from her and circled around to pick the treacherous heretics off one by one before they could get close to her. 

It was the first time he'd seen her fight unrestricted, and the first time they'd fought together. She was nothing short of magnificent. 

There was little doubt in his mind that she could have cleared the entire battlefield alone. Rhea had, he confessed to himself, been correct in her certainty that Byleth would make a good instructor. These students would never be in danger while they had her at their side. 

What a terrifying opponent she must make. 

Their enemy was defeated within half a day, and once the bodies were buried, Byleth rounded up the students methodically to prepare them for the short march back to Garreg Mach, checking each of them individually to ensure none had sustained any serious injuries during the fight. 

Seteth hung back, taking a short time to linger by Aiofe’s grave in solitude. He crouched beside the stone, clearing away the debris littered around it. 

When he was done, he sat back on the sand and let himself breathe. 

“It has been a while, my love,” he murmured softly. “Cethleann is well. She recently enrolled in the Officer’s Academy… whether or not you would approve of that, I am unsure, but I’m afraid she inherited my stubborn nature, so there was no arguing with her when she had made up her mind to go.”

There was no reply, of course. The dead insisted on keeping their opinions to themselves.

"I have not been unhappy. Though I admit I have been foolish. I wonder what you would say to me if you could." He sighed and kicked at the sand a little with his heel. "To be perfectly honest with you, I'm afraid."

It was the first time he'd admitted it to himself. 

"There is… someone. A human woman. You would like her, I'm certain. Truthfully–" he baulked. To say the words aloud made them seem all the more real. Was he always such a coward? 

"Truthfully, I’m terrified that I may be falling in love with her." It was a relief. More so than he could have imagined, to confess this secret fear.

A cool sea breeze washed over him, and he looked out across the sparkling ocean, feeling his anxiety ease as his breathing synched up with the steady rhythm of the waves. 

"You're right, I am being over-dramatic."

"Who are you talking to?"

Byleth's tendency to appear in his general vicinity unannounced was a continued source of amusement and bemusement to him. He turned and looked up at her with a soft smile.

“Would you sit with me for a moment?”

She squatted down beside him wordlessly.

“This monument is the grave of my late wife.”

Byleth tucked a stray wisp of hair behind her ear and squinted at the stone. "It looks ancient."

He was reminded again of how very young she was, and how much of himself he was keeping from her. "I suppose it does."

Unexpectedly, she took his hand and laced their fingers together. "What was her name?"

"Aoife." How long had it been since he spoke her name last? So long that it felt unfamiliar on his tongue.

Byleth squeezed his hand. "Aoife, you don't have to worry about Seteth. He acts like a stick in the mud sometimes, and he apologises too much, but he is being very good and kind without you here to keep and eye on him."

He laughed.

"Shouldn't Flayn come and pay her respects while we're here? Did they ever meet?"

Of all the secrets he kept from Byleth, this one felt like the biggest betrayal. It did not feel like a secret, but rather more like an outright lie. 

Whatever the unspoken status of their relationship, there could be little doubt that she had become a trusted friend to him, and he saw no harm in letting her into his confidence. 

"They knew each other well. They loved one another deeply."

He stood, and pulled Byleth to her feet by their joined hands before releasing her, lest they be noticed. 

Flayn was some way away from the monument, playing in the tide pools with the other students.

"Flayn… she is not actually my younger sister."

"Oh?"

He couldn't tell if she was surprised by his revelation or not. She didn't look at him, only watched her students enjoying themselves with a slight smile on her face.

"She is my child."

This time, she did look at him. She did not appear to be particularly surprised, but her brow was knit slightly in confusion. "Why are you telling me this now?"

He felt the strongest urge to soften the tiny line between her eyebrows with his thumb. To kiss it. He restrained himself, opting instead to tell her in the simplest terms the reason for his disclosure.

"Because I trust you."

—

The passage of time, from Seteth's point of view, was a changeable thing. 

Sometimes, a year would pass in the blink of an eye. At other times, a single day would feel like a year.

When they were in hiding, fifty, or even one hundred years could pass him by and he might never have known it but for the change in scenery and politics around him. 

Sitting at his desk and writing up plans for the Officers Academy ball had been one of the longer days. It was rare for a single day to feel like one hundred years, but, it turned out, it did happen on occasion.

By the time he finally made it back to his bedchamber, it was well past midnight, and he was utterly exhausted. 

He splashed water on his face and allowed a moment to scan his appearance in the looking-glass. He was tired, and it showed.

Perhaps he had aged one hundred years in one day, too.

He scratched his cheek where the stubble growth of a few days made him itch. He would have to wake early in the morning to shave. 

Bed and sleep beckoned to him now, and the call was irresistible. He snuffed out the candle by his wash basin and plodded over to his bed in a way that was truly befitting of his age. 

His head had barely even touched down on his pillow when he heard the unmistakable click of the latch on his door. The footsteps were so near silent that they would surely be impossible for anyone to hear were they not so accustomed to listening for them as Seteth was.

He heard her slip out of her clothes; probably only the pair of shorts and black shirt that he knew she tended to sleep in. 

"Are you sleeping?" she asked in a hushed tone as she climbed into the bed beside him.

He rolled onto his side–a motion that took an enormous effort–and pulled her towards him, ducking his head and nuzzling into her breasts.

"Could you not tell by my breathing that I was awake?" he asked. His voice was muffled in a most pleasing way, and he pressed a messy kiss into her skin.

“I’m a mercenary, not an assassin. You could’ve been dead for all I knew.” She grasped a tuft of his hair impishly and pulled his head back. “Your face is scratchy, stop that.”

He slumped onto his back and huffed. “But you are so soft. My pillow feels as if it were made of iron.”

This was a lie, although she was indeed soft, he was so indescribably tired that his pillow felt like a cloud, and he could sense that he was in danger of falling asleep if he closed his eyes for even a moment.

He felt the mattress dip slightly, and suddenly he could see her. She stubbed out the match in her hand with her thumb and dropped it by the freshly lit lamp on the bedside table.

"You don't look like you've got enough strength to do what I came here to ask of you," she said, her lips turned up slightly at the corners in amusement.

"Presumably you came here to use my body," he replied, "you are welcome to do so." He gestured vaguely at the tent in the blankets directly above his crotch. 

She picked up her pillow and planted it on his face. "I was hoping you'd be in the mood to fuck me up against the wall until I can't see straight and tell me what a good girl I am."

He was too tired to be taken aback by her audacity, and when she lifted the pillow he just gazed at her. Goddess, she was lovely, bathed in the warm glow of the lamp light.

"Are you disappointed?" he asked. "I've been working since dawn. If you'd like to leave, I will not take it to heart."

"Do you want me to leave?"

He shook his head. "Never."

"Never?" She laughed quietly. "You really are tired."

She reached down to him and touched his cheek with the tips of her fingers. He leaned in to her touch like a lost kitten. 

"Do you want some help with this?" She ran her fingers over the fresh beard growth to illustrate her point.

He blinked lazily up at her. "That depends. Do you know how to shave a man's face without slitting his throat?"

That brought a most gratifying smile to her face, and she prodded his cheek. "Let's just say I know how to slit a man's throat so accurately, that logically I must already know how to avoid it."

Even with his mind in a sleep deprived haze, he knew her logic was flawed, but it wasn't often that she behaved so playfully towards him, and he felt an irrepressible urge to indulge her. 

He held an arm out to her and she pulled him up, groaning theatrically even though he knew that if she wished to, she could lift his entire weight without expending much effort.

He resigned himself to his fate and sat up properly, setting his feet on the cold stone floor beside the bed. Byleth got up, not bothering to dress herself, and made her way over to his wash basin. 

“The water is cold,” he said. “My razor and soap are on the shelf.”

She was already there, rooting out his shaving kit and filling the basin with fresh water from the pitcher. He watched her in silence as she placed them on a tray and carried them over to his bedside.

"Can I tie your hair back?"

Ah. 

He chewed his bottom lip for a moment, trying to think of a reason to say 'no,' but coming up short. 

She gazed at him expectantly as she sharpened the razor. 

"I–perhaps–"

"I can do it with your hair down, don't worry," she said with a shrug. "Your ears are scarred, right? I felt them. You don't have to show me if you're self-conscious."

He didn't know whether to feel relieved, horrified by his own complacency, or guilty for lying to her by omission. He just nodded dumbly and raised his chin.

"You work too hard." She worked the soap into a lather and coated the lower half of his face and his chin.

The cathedral bells chimed two, and Seteth knew that she was right. He did not reply, partly because there was no sense in attempting to justify his long hours, but also because he knew from past experience that his soap tasted terrible, and it was safer to keep his mouth shut.

Byleth had never been a particularly loquacious person in all the months he'd known her, and this night was no different. Rather than say anything further, she hummed quietly while running the razor steadily over his face.

She was careful to avoid his beard, and despite her earlier japery, she made an obvious effort to be cautious at his throat.

Watching her staring so intently at his mouth as she shaved meticulously around it was unexpectedly arousing, and the thin linen breeches he was wearing to sleep in became even less comfortable than they had been before she'd started. 

He wished with a renewed vigour that he had the energy to hold her up against his chamber wall and take her as roughly as she appeared to desire. 

She put the razor down and padded his face with a cloth, and then kissed him sweetly on the cheek.

"You can sleep now," she whispered in his ear.

The comfort he felt at the moment that she lay down with him and pulled him into her was almost overwhelming. He was asleep before he could thank her, and when he awoke the following morning, she was gone.

—

The distant sounds of laughter and jovial music barely penetrated the walls of the bath house, but still Seteth wondered at every murmur that reached his ears whether it was her voice; her smile; her laugh, rare as it was, being gifted to another. 

He sucked in a deep breath, humiliated by his own inability to distract himself from thoughts of her, even as he knew that on a night such as this–the night of the highly anticipated ball–there was little chance that her mind lingered upon him for even a moment.

The deep, warm water of the bath lapped at his shoulders, and as another image of Byleth's lovely face floated through his mind, he submerged himself completely in a final attempt to wash away the unbidden preoccupation. 

It was a fool's errand. The muffled roaring that filled his ears only seemed to create a more ideal environment for his treacherous mind to wander. 

He thought of every moment he made himself ridiculous in front of her. He thought of every time he should have said more to her. And, with a deep sense of shame, he thought of all the times he would have been better off thinking of other things entirely.

He wondered again whether he and Flayn would’ve been better off fleeing into hiding immediately after her abduction.

He had even gone as far as to make preparations for their departure. Byleth had responded with silence when he'd told her of his plans; he knew better than to assume that meant she was indifferent, but Flayn had interrupted their conversation with her objections before he'd had a chance to find out what she might have eventually said.

Seteth sat up all of a sudden and gasped for breath, taking in gulps of the humid bath house air as the water settled around him once more.

It had taken little persuasion from Flayn to convince him they should remain as they were. Though the monastery had never felt less like a haven to him, he was not blind enough to his own selfishness to deny that Flayn's wishes were very much aligned with his own.

"Who's there?" a woman's voice called out from behind the partition that separated the men's bath from the women's, and Seteth immediately recognised it's owner to be Manuela. 

He considered ignoring her for a moment and leaving, but he had no desire to alarm her, so he responded. 

"Only Seteth," he said, his voice echoing off the tiled walls.

A dry laugh echoed back. " _Only_?" she asked. "I'm surprised to find you here tonight, I thought it would just be lonely old me who wasn't enjoying the dancing." 

Seteth sighed. "I'm afraid to say that the idea of spending an evening crammed into a ballroom filled to the bursting with hormonal youths and meaningless frivolity did not prove to be as much of an enticement to me as it appears to be for others."

Manuela laughed again, and this time her laughter sounded so much closer in proximity that Seteth started and snatched a towel from the edge of the bath, draping it over his head to cover the soft points of his ears which were likely protruding from his saturated hair.

She emerged from the women’s side wearing nothing more than a thin robe, a glass of red wine clasped firmly in her hand.

“Your towel doesn’t leave much to the imagination,” she said saucily as she dropped her robe and stepped into the large tub across from him.

Seteth averted his eyes, deciding that it would be better not to inform her that if she truly thought that, her imagination must be sorely lacking. “This is the men’s bath.”

She shrugged and took a sip of wine, eyeing him with a mixture of amusement and wry interest. “Oh, I know. It just seemed so silly for us to have a conversation with the partition between us. This is much more comfortable, wouldn’t you say?”

He sighed and met her gaze, taking pains to avoid looking upon her nakedness. “I should say not. We are both completely undressed, and I for one came here in the hopes of bathing in relative privacy.”

“We’re both adults, I know this isn't the first time you've seen a naked woman. You can look at me if you’d like. I wouldn’t be opposed.” She swallowed the rest of her wine in one gulp. “It could be good for both of us to release some of the tension that came along with organising that hormone fuelled event.”

Seteth wondered for a moment if he had done something drastically different with his appearance recently without realising it. Whether his voice had grown inexplicably deeper or whether he had grown an extra inch in height. 

He knew himself to be a man of average appearance, not to mention the slightly prickly personality he intentionally assumed during working hours.

It was possible he was mistaken. Manuela hadn't directly suggested any kind of dalliance to him. 

Still, it was best to make certain. He had no desire to lead Manuela on, not when he already had more than enough of an emotionally uncertain and physically overwhelming relationship with Byleth.

“Manuela, I strongly dislike making assumptions of this nature, but I must ask you. Could it be that you are propositioning me right now?”

She raised her eyebrows impatiently at him and he was reminded of how quickly he had become used to Byleth’s bluntness. 

“I’m afraid I–”

“Seteth, if this is you rejecting me, let’s just pretend you’re wrong and my intentions were entirely innocent.”

He laughed, despite himself. “I would appreciate that.”

A sort of awkward silence descended upon them, and suddenly the ball did not seem quite so unappealing as Seteth had initially concluded.

“I didn’t want to go to the ball because I thought no-one would want to dance with me,” Manuella said suddenly. “I’m not so sure now that this situation isn’t actually worse.”

“It seems our thoughts are aligned for once,” Seteth chuckled.

“You thought nobody would dance with you?”

“That wasn’t what I–”

“You would rather be at the ball than here?”

“Yes.”

If it was possible, Manuela’s demeanour appeared to deflate even farther than it had after his initial rejection, and Seteth felt a twinge of guilt. 

“No man will ever want me,” she lamented–evidently the wine was beginning to take effect. “I’m not completely unlovable, am I? I know my looks haven't faded, is it my personality? Be honest with me, Seteth, I’m going to be alone forever, aren’t I?”

“I’m certain that the right person will come along when the time is right for you both,” he said placatingly. 

Of course, it was not enough. She sighed dramatically and reached for her empty wine glass. “What a polite way of telling me to give up.” She went to take a sip and looked incredulously into the glass when she realised it was empty. “I asked you to be honest with me.”

“What is it that you’d like me to say? Would you like me to tell you that you’re beautiful? That any man who turns you away is a fool?”

“Well obviously! But I want you to say those things without me asking you to say them. Goddess, Seteth, no wonder you’re single. You have no idea how to speak to a woman at all.”

A faint laugh from somewhere outside seemed to punctuate her point, and Seteth thought again of Byleth.

Surely he told her frequently of her own loveliness. How beautiful he found her. Surely she knew that for however long she wished for his company, he could never deny her. 

“But you men are all the same,” she went on. “You get a woman into your bed and the compliments flow like wine.”

Perhaps she was right. It was never a bad time to reflect on one’s own failings. He imagined for a moment what Byleth would say to him if he expressed such sentiments outside of his bedchamber. She would likely remind him of their status as friends and ask him to refrain.

“Is it really too much to ask for a handsome young man to whisk me away to the Goddess Tower and tell me he wants to be with me forever?” Manuela sighed. “I suppose you probably think I’m childish for hoping for something so silly. That tradition is really only for the students anyw–you’re not even listening to me, are you?”

Seteth blinked. “You were saying something about the Goddess Tower?”

“Never mind. If I’m not interesting enough to hold your attention for ten minutes of conversation while I sit completely naked in front of you, I’m not willing to repeat myself,” she said petulantly.

Seteth pinched the bridge of his nose; an attempt to stave off the rapid onset of a tension headache. “The fact that you have no clothes on bears very little relation to how closely I am listening to your words. I was very interested in what you were saying. I was just pondering my own inadequacy for a moment there and I’m afraid I missed something rather important. You said something about a tradition for the students? Something to do with the Goddess Tower.”

_“I’m surprised you’ve never heard of it,” she said. “The saying goes that if a couple meets in the Goddess Tower on the night of the ball, their wish will be granted… or something.” She laughed. "I wonder how many will be up there right now wishing to be together forever?"_

Why was he doing this? He hadn’t stopped to think about it before he had abandoned the bath in haste and dragged on his shirt and breeches, granting Manuela a cursory goodbye on his way out.

She had laughed. Called out something about how determined he was to ruin all the fun for the students. Perhaps she was right. The Goddess Tower was strictly out of bounds to students, and he held a responsibility to ensure that the rule was upheld. 

Yes. It had absolutely nothing to do with Byleth.

The volunteer chaperones for the ball were Alois, Hanneman, Catherine, and of course, Byleth. Since none of them seemed, by Seteth’s reckoning, to be as fanciful of mind as Manuela, the likelihood was high that none of them had even heard of such a fairytale.

The hour was late, and the stars twinkled above him prettily as he jogged towards the tower. The coolness of the evening made his bath-damp skin prickle uncomfortably as the music and general hubbub of the ball grew louder, and he slowed his pace to a walk.

He desperately needed to get a handle on his own thoughts. Was he here to air his frustrations at romantically inclined students, or was he hoping to run into Byleth and express his willingness to throw himself absolutely into a tragic love story with her? Because there would be no happy endings for Seteth. Not ever.

She was probably dancing with someone else, anyway. Someone more appropriate, which, he supposed, could be almost any other person within the whole of Garreg Mach.

When he reached the base of the tower he changed his mind. This was foolish. He didn't know what he had been thinking. It was immediately obvious that the tower was deserted. 

The heavy oak door in front of him creaked open before he had a chance to turn away from it, and Byleth emerged, not alone, but with the Blaiddyd Prince, Dimitri.

They looked like the perfect shy young couple in the early stages of courtship. The prince’s eyes were fixed on her face, his cheeks coloured with a faint blush as he gazed at her in obvious admiration. Seteth felt a painful stab of envy. That young man could offer her everything that was impossible for him. Shared youth. Shared mortality. A life without fear of being hunted. Honesty. 

It was that moment that his thoughts decided to make sense of themselves. He had left the bath house with unjustified hopes of meeting her here. He and Byleth had become closer in recent months, and he had projected some type of juvenile romantic fantasy onto a relationship which was essentially nothing more than a convenient means of escapism for them both. 

He was ashamed of himself, and loath as he was to admit it, he was embarrassed and hurt.

“Professor,” he said, nodding his head curtly in her direction without meeting her eye. “Your Highness. Please excuse me.”

He turned on his heel and walked as swiftly as he could in the opposite direction. The music from the ball rattled in his ears like nails on a chalkboard as he stalked past. Rather than the sounds of merriment that he had listened to from the bath house, the laughter and high spirited chatter sounded like mockery.

He walked blindly, cursing his naivety with every step, and was surprised but grateful for the privacy when he found himself back in his own rooms. 

“You imbecile,” he muttered to himself, unbuttoning his shirt and throwing it onto the floor. “You fool.”

He slumped down on his bed and gripped his hair with both hands, squeezing his eyes shut and falling onto his back with a groan. 

"Fool. Fool. Fool."

The mattress dipped beside him and he opened his eyes and sat bolt upright. It was Byleth, of course, because who else would have the effrontery to enter his chamber uninvited, and she was taking her clothes off. 

“You walk so fast, I barely had a chance to say goodnight to Dimitri,” she said. 

She unclipped her collar and bodice and dropped them on the floor by his shirt and the coat she had presumably abandoned on her way to the bed, and continued to wriggle her way out of her shorts and stockings while he watched her, not knowing what to say.

“That was exhausting. I thought I was going to pass out. Give me a battle over a ball any day.”

She got up and crossed the room, finding the carafe of water on his dresser and chugging half of it before turning to face him again. 

"What?" She must have noticed him staring.

"Why are you here?" he asked. "The ball will not be over for several hours."

"Exactly," she said conspiratorially. She walked over to the bed and climbed onto his lap, straddling him and pushing him back down on the bed. "I didn't even have to sneak around, everyone's busy and distracted."

"But I thought–"

She silenced him with a kiss, and Seteth couldn't even remember what he had been about to say as he felt the wet heat of her arousal through the thin fabric of his breeches. He was already hard–he had been since he’d first noticed her removing her clothes.

This was what she wanted from him. Not romantic gestures or sentimental words. If she desired companionship or compliments, she would seek them out elsewhere, and Seteth could make his peace with that.

It was probably for the best.

She pulled away and he chased her lips, sitting up and kissing her roughly. She was correct in her surmisation that there was no need for discretion on this night. It had not been all that long ago that she’d asked him to fuck her against the wall of this very room. He could do that for her tonight. He could fuck her until she screamed if she wished it.

Her cool hands pushed against his chest, and he broke the kiss, searching her face for any sign of discomfort. There was none, but he knew that meant little when it came to Byleth.

“You changed your mind?” he asked breathlessly, disentangling his hands from her hair and planting them on the bed behind him.

She shook her head, and pressed her lips together as though she was stopping herself from saying something. Seteth knew that he couldn’t continue until he had heard her speak.

He brushed a stray lock of hair out of her face and found her gaze, locking eyes with her insistently. "You know you have to tell me… if I do something wrong, don't you?"

She nodded.

"With words," he clarified.

"You didn't do anything wrong," she replied. "I just…"

She dropped her gaze again and her cheeks coloured. Seteth felt his chest tighten. What could he have done to cause this? 

"Have I frightened you?"

She looked back up at him with a half hearted smirk, though the blush that stained her cheek remained. “You think you could frighten me?”

He found no amusement in the question. “Regardless of the difference between our physical strengths, if you don't have the confidence to speak your mind when I am making you feel uncomfortable, I believe that yes, I could frighten you. I am not yet entirely convinced that I haven’t.”

“You always jump to the wildest conclusions. Do you enjoy torturing yourself?” She sighed. “I just have a request, and it’s a bit embarrassing.”

“Oh.” It was unlike her to be embarrassed around him; she was usually so brazenly forthcoming with her requests that it was frequently he who was left red faced and floundering for words.

"It's a sex request."

"I gathered that. Would you care to elaborate?"

"Fuck me like you love me." 

His stomach lurched and rolled. "Byleth…"

Of all the many things she could've asked of him, none had the potential to destroy him as completely as this.

She must have sensed his hesitation, because she forced a nervous laugh. "You don't have to, I was just curious."

His hands found a resting place on her hips, and he caressed her softly with his thumbs. Her request was as enticing as it was terrible, and Seteth was powerless to refuse. He switched their positions by rolling her onto her back on the bed, and kissed her on the mouth. This time, he kissed her gently.

"You're beautiful," he told her as he kissed her jaw, her neck, her collarbone. "Every time I see you I feel as though my heart stops beating."

She tensed beneath him for a moment and he looked up at her face. 

"I'm fine, please carry on telling me how great I am," she said to the ceiling. 

He smiled and kissed a scar on her shoulder. Perhaps he did not tell her enough how utterly enamoured he was after all.

Her body was littered with scars, which was not uncommon for a mercenary. Seteth himself had scars marring his skin in a similar way; a memento from desperate times.

He took the time to really look at every healed wound on her skin. It must've been years since she had sustained such a serious injury, because most of the scarring was faded and white. 

Seteth paused at a particularly distinctive scar just below her breast. It was a scar that was evidently the result of powerful magic, but even this was faded to the point that it was almost invisible.

He smoothed a thumb over the blemish and kissed it, committing it to memory along with every other inch of her body. He had told her he would fuck her like he loved her, and he knew it would not be difficult. Rather, it had been more difficult to restrain himself from giving her everything on every encounter prior to this.

The difficult part would come later, he knew, but this was not the time to dwell on such thoughts. 

Instead, he focused on the gratifying noises she made as he touched her. As he put his mouth on her and brought her to ecstasy with his tongue. As he finally– _finally_ –pressed inside her and made love to her slowly.

He finished inside her, unintentionally, and pulled out in a panic. “I’m sor–”

She pulled him back down into an embrace. “Shut up.”

“But I–”

“I’ve been taking… precautions against pregnancy since we started this,” she said lazily. “Can we just stay like this for a while?”

He breathed a sigh of relief and nodded into her hair. 

“Why did you come to the tower tonight?” she asked in a hushed tone. 

“It was foolish.”

“Just tell me.”

“I wanted to make a wish with you.”

“Why didn’t you say?” Her voice was so quiet. She must’ve been about to fall asleep. 

He held her closer for a moment and took in the scent of her hair. It had become so familiar to him lately. “That boy, he is absolutely infatuated with you, were you aware?”

Her only response was the deep, steady breathing of sleep. It wasn’t long before he followed her.

In sleep, his mind was at peace. He dreamed of children welcomed with joy, and he dreamed of safety. He dreamed of growing old, and he dreamed of death. Most peculiar of all, he dreamed of a girl child, one of his own kind, telling him to have patience.

When he woke in his cold bed alone the next day, he remembered none of them.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to everyone who is still here, and thank you to everyone who left comments and kudos on the last update. I was really moved by some of your thoughtful comments.  
> I get so hyped when I get a comment that I always rush to reply to them right away, but since I update so sporadically, I've decided that I will not reply to guest user comments until I have posted the next installment, because it seems like a practical way to let you know when the next update is here even if you dont have an ao3 account. If you have a question that you'd like a reply to right away then just say!
> 
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> 
> If you want to get email updates on this story, please either subscribe to my [user page](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jointhebattle) or to the [series](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1623028), since you wont get them if you just sub to one of the individual fics.


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